Marc McFadyen
Marc has been shooting pictures ever since he purchased his first 35mm camera at the age of 15. He spent three years living in Paris printing black and white photos out of his darkroom. He has exhibited his work in both Paris and Shanghai, where he has been living for eight years. He loves to seek for beauty in the most unlikely places and then interpret it through his camera lens. After Shanghai, he moved back to New Zealand, and completely master of Fine Art in Photography and moving images. Since 2022, Marc has relocated to Türkiye.
The project " Digital Tapa " stems from Marc’s New Zealand-Fijian heritage in which he was brought up. It looks at ways to navigate family history through traditional systems of recording history and family memories, i.e. the westernised photo album and Pacific Island Tapa cloth.
Tapa or Masi as it is known in Fiji, is the traditional art form of decorating bark cloth. Masi has many varied uses and meanings, such as wedding gifts, funeral coverings, and can even represent social status. Masi uses motifs and designs that can represent cultural and social identity. It can carry with it the sense of prestige and honour, or it can simply be used for many practical purposes such as a space where the family gather around to sit, engage or relax.
